As I watched the mass exodus of MPs from both sides of the house who chose to leave rather than stay for Keir Starmer’s brief statement on the Grenfell inquiry report this week, I was reminded of a similar act of disdain by a previous member of parliament.
Eric Pickles, one in a long line of David Cameron’s ministers in charge of housing, was questioned about the role deregulation had played in the Grenfell disaster as part of the inquiry. In response, he asked tetchily how long it was going to take, because he had a busy schedule. Perhaps foreseeing how badly this might play in public, he calmed down long enough to insist that Cameron’s bonfire of red tape had played no part in his department’s failure to rewrite inadequate building regulations.
